I really hope I don’t come across as a slacker by writing this, but it is a topic I feel strongly about. Bad work habits are hard to break, and are contagious…spreading throughout entire teams, divisions and companies. Productivity, passion, company culture and individual team members can be ruined. Working hard is definitely important, but anyone is capable of putting in long hours and “hard” work. It’s working smart that can really make you a top-tier team member, and far too few make this a focus.

Working smart…what does that mean? If I could recommend one source to help explain this it would be the book REWORK by the founders of 37signals. The 37signals blog, Signal vs. Noise, is also a great source of information. If you aren’t familiar them, 37signals is a web application company with popular products such as Basecamp and Highrise. They generate millions in annual profit with less than 20 employees worldwide by working smart. Here is a recap of a few essays from the book:

• Meetings are toxic: The true cost of meetings is staggering. For example, 10 people attending a one-hour meeting is really a 10-hour meeting…maybe more like a 15-hour meeting (in terms of productive hours lost) when mental switches and commuting are accounted for.
• Workaholism: Fire the workaholics. They don’t care more or get more done, their addiction to working actually makes them create problems or develop unproductive habits so they can put in more hours. They spread these poor habits, along with guilt and other moral-lowering feelings, to your other employees.
• Planning is guessing: “Unless you are a fortune teller, long-term business planning is a fantasy.” This essay discusses the dangers of relying too much on business plans, since they are really only “guesses” due to outside factors and how quickly things change.
• ASAP is poison:  ASAP devalues timing and prioritization, and should never be used other than in cases of true emergencies.

Drastically Reduce Number of Meetings

Meetings. I hate them. Most of us hate them. So why are so many unnecessary meetings clogging up our calendars? Here are some tips from Seth Godin, who also shares my disdain for meetings:

• Most meetings should be held without chairs. People standing up think more quickly and get distracted less often. And the meetings don't last as long.
• All day meetings should be banned.
• Don't bother having a meeting if you're not there to change or make a decision right now.
• More meeting tips from Seth here and here. 

Avoid Admin Tasks that Don’t Add Value

For each of your administrative tasks, stop and ask yourself…is this particular task helping me/my company/my customer meet their goals and objectives? If the answer is no, stop doing it. If someone has asked you to do it, do what you can to convince them it isn’t necessary.
As a supervisor, please avoid assigning your team members administrative tasks that take them an hour to help you save five minutes. Information found in daily summaries, status recaps, etc. are all things that you can quickly find on your own. Spend that five minutes being resourceful, or ask specific questions if you have them, and have your team members spend time on things that are more valuable. 

Refresh and Recharge

Time off is important. Use it. You’ll notice a difference in yourself and your productivity, and others will as well. Coworkers and customers can tell the difference between a sharp, fresh brain and a tired, frazzled one. Burnout is dangerous.

Comfort with taking time off is a cultural practice that needs to trickle down from the top. The good news is that most companies and bosses understand the value of time off and encourage it. This recent survey shows that 88% of respondents respect employee time off and only contact them for emergencies. 

In addition to vacation time, try to take mini brain breaks when possible. For example, let’s say you have put in a few weeks of long hours for a particular project. After the project is complete, you have a few days with a more relaxed schedule. During that time, try to leave early, take lunch breaks, and do everything you can to refresh a bit before the next project hits. Also, if your company offers time out of the office for training, personal development or volunteer work, take advantage of those opportunities. 

Working Smart is…Difficult

Hopefully these tips help. Just be prepared…it’s not easy working smart. When working within the constraints of corporate habits, bosses, stakeholders and customers, working smart is difficult. So, make sure you tread with caution. Otherwise, you put yourself at risk of saying no to important people, and becoming a target of workaholics for getting your work done in eight hours instead of 12 hours.

Last October I wrote a post about social search, and despite past failures such as Buzz, I predicted a competitive social offering from Google. Now, here we are 10 months later with Google+, which supposedly has added an estimated 20+ million users in just a couple of weeks. An impressive start, yes, but will Google+ actually turn out to be a long-term player?

The coolest thing I have encountered so far in my limited experience with Google+ is the “circles” feature. This allows you to segment your “friends” into different groups. For example, you can share something (maybe somewhat inappropriate) with a group of “close friends” without your “work friends” seeing it (and avoid an invite to the HR office). For businesses, this allows them to segment their communities and tailor content for specific groups (for example investors vs. customers), test ideas with select users/customers, or share “inside information” with social media influencers. Organizing circles opens up a whole new world of customized options for crowdsourcing, learning, privacy, sharing and organization of contacts.

Beyond that, I honestly haven’t found anything in the user experience that is groundbreaking, although I have yet to really get into it. Also, this is a limited beta version. There is still no API, so for now, there are no third-party applications, ads, games, etc. So it’s hard to tell the impact and potential this has for social media marketing.

The big question is, will Google+ be a serious threat to major players like Facebook and Twitter?

It’s possible, there is a lot of potential there, but they might be hitting the market a little late. I don’t know about you, but the first thing I thought when I received my first Google+ invitation was “Really, another social network I have to manage and participate in?” Are people going to add Google+ into the mix when they already have to manage their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr accounts and so on? There is only so much time in the day.

Either way, this will put Google in a good position when it comes to social search. Currently, content within Google+ is not searchable, but in organic Google searches, the more content is shared via social media (any network), the better it does in search results. With all the tools at their disposal, Google is very well positioned to come up with a solution that really connects social and search.

And even if social search doesn’t materialize into a significant market force, Google still has plenty of options to make money by tying Google+ into its existing offerings (paid search, display ads, offers/daily deals and more).

Announced on October 13, the partnership between Facebook and Bing continues to generate  plenty of buzz. It is supposed to change the world of search, for better or worse. In short, Bing will start incorporating data from Facebook in its search results pages, meaning that websites, articles, music and anything else that someone’s Facebook friends “like” or share will show up in designated areas of relevant search results. So, what does this mean for search providers, marketers and most importantly, users?

For social media marketers, one of the most significant impacts will be that this partnership will make even more valuable social equity like Facebook fans or “likes”. These now will not only impact brands’ Facebook profiles but also their ability to show up in search results. So, instead of keywords, relevant content or other SEO-related tactics, a brand’s social “popularity” will drive them to the top of search results. This makes Facebook engagement ads — and other tactics that drive people to “like” your page — that much more important.

In the search market, this move does differentiate Bing from Google, although it is unclear how much of an impact it will have, or whether Google has anything up its sleeve to counter (I’m betting they do). Google has hinted that they have a solution for social search, and they do not seem worried about this new partnership, but they have not given any clues or specifics.  

And how will the partnership affect users? Will it improve or harm the search experience? It’s hard to say. It could change the way people search, and the way they make purchase decisions, based on friends’ likes and dislikes. But critics say that in the battle to win the targeted ad war and increase advertising revenue, search providers are sacrificing search result quality.  John C. Dvorak of PC Magazine lays out this scenario:

“Here’s what is going to happen. You are going to search for the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, and the advertising delivery modeler, which would normally find some random advertisement for memorial information or Jeffersonian memorabilia or who knows what, will now look at your Facebook information, see that you went to Jefferson High School and assume you are obviously looking up something in regards to the school. If the engine is worth a powder, it will do the math and discover that your class is having a their 40th annual high school reunion, and the ad server will hopefully display ads for party favors, event planning and other related items. Thus, target ads would be based on multiple factors.”

"You will be notified that we will be enhancing your Bing experience before we actually do it, with an opportunity to say "disable" or to go and learn more before you decide if you want to take advantage of the feature. In addition, people will only see Facebook profile search results for people in their Facebook network when signed into Facebook.”